Justice in a (polished) workplace is what alumna Mylena Maitimu works hard for. To sharpen her mind, she took the Bachelor of Philosophy of a Specific Discipline in addition to studying International Business Administration. She translated her insights into image and sound for two seasons as a volunteer editor at Erasmus Verbindt's podcast Stadswandelingen (City Strolls). We interviewed her about her editorial work, the revaluation of labor relations and cleaners in the night.
Interview by Sieme de Wolf
Mylena struggles to catch her breath when she walks onto the faculty at two in the afternoon. Behind her, she drags a rolling suitcase full of clothes: “For a clothing exchange with friends.” The second-degree alumna has had an exhilarating morning: a job interview in Hilversum for a traineeship with one of the major radio and television broadcasters.
When this interview took place in early summer, Mylena was still graduating. She has since then completed the master's degree in Sociology at the University of Amsterdam, where she has had a particular focus on the sociology of labor. Currently, Mylena is working full-time; with a broadcaster-wide traineeship at the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep and as an editorial board member of the program Medialogica of broadcaster HUMAN, a journalistic program that takes a critical look at the perception of media and its influence on public opinion.
Not only does Mylena enjoy thinking and talking about labor, but as a trainee and editor she herself also works hard to keep the ball rolling. Something she started doing, on a side note, as a high school student, quite literally: she reached the Dutch top as a table tennis player.
Mylena's love for media making received an impulse when the Rotterdam native joined the editorial team of Stadswandelingen, a podcast by student initiative Erasmus Verbindt, in 2022. The creators of Stadswandelingen engage in “walking conversations with Rotterdammers and scientists” in search of answers to urban issues. Recently, the third season of Stadswandelingen was published, with the seasonal theme of 'the night'. The journalistic work in and for the city is tailor-made for Mylena: she was born and grew up in the city on the Maas and calls herself 'a Rotterdammer at heart', so she knows all about Rotterdam's night and day life. For an episode about night work, Mylena wrote the script and arranged the speakers: labor sociologist Fabian Dekker and Dennis Heegen, a garbage collector who is also a hairdresser. We take a cup of tea and sit down in a room.
Wiep van Bunge
Mylena's introduction to the study of philosophy had a little run-up. In high school, she found business administration interesting, so she went to study International Business Administration right after her senior year, in 2017. With success - she graduated - but little enthusiasm: “It was nothing for me. It felt impersonal in a lecture hall with sometimes as many as six hundred people, and I also missed a critical reflection of the subject matter.” So, after happily attending a lecture by Wiep van Bunge, she enrolled in her second year for the second-degree philosophy programme.
Power relations
While studying philosophy, Mylena discovered her love for both journalism and sociology of labor: “Towards the end of the second degree, I did an internship at Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam, where I organized Tegenlicht-meetups and worked on the ‘New Economy’ program series. At the latter, the speakers at our debate evenings sought answers to questions facing the current economy, with themes such as degrowth economics and the commons. I enjoyed doing editing and production tasks there. And during that time came to the conclusion that all the philosophers I found interesting, Marx for example, were almost always sociologists as well. That's how I ended up with a master's in Sociology at the University of Amsterdam. There I delved further into the sociology of labor, where the interest in business administration and philosophy converge.”
What attracts Mylena to the sociology of labor are work relations and the power relations inherent in them, where exploitation also plays a role: “The exploitation that takes place in society, in the sense of how Marx described it. Not only in the productive work we all do, but especially in the reproductive work that takes place in society.”
Cleaners
Reproductive work, according to Mylena, is the economic or philosophical term for the mostly unpaid work that sustains productive work: “When, for example, if you put it very flatly, the man can go to work in the office because the woman makes his breakfast. Or: I can rest after a long day at work because my roommate cooked for me.” Work and power relationships are of interest to Mylena because, she says, “they sustain each other, but also are often at odds.”
“And reproductive labor is also often less valued,” she continues. “I'm currently writing my thesis on cleaners, who are often underpaid. This issue makes the news sometimes, for example when the FNV negotiations take place. The often too low pay of cleaners is also partly because cleaning work is by nature reproductive labor, and in addition is mainly done by women, and therefore not really valued.”
Different perspectives
This undervaluation, and sometimes underpayment, concerns Mylena. Partly because of this, she signed up with City Strolls, in order to give voice to a critical perspective. In doing so, she uses the concept of intersectionality, a way of thinking to map different sides of a person's life, revealing new connections, which Mylena first encountered in a text by Donna Haraway during the Thinking Lived Themes course.
But Mylena also had ambitious motivations for applying: “After my internship at Pakhuis de Zwijger, I got my bachelor's degree, and soon I missed doing something practical with the knowledge I had gained, and I also wanted to explore new forms of media making. That's how I ended up at Erasmus Verbindt. I have since moved to Amsterdam, but at the time I was also still living in Rotterdam. And I wanted to keep the connection with the city and the university.”
The night
We can discover that connection in the episodes she worked on. Mylena says that in the second City Strolls season she and other editors made an episode about stress and health: “I made the script, prepared interviews and looked for the guests.” She found Manon Hillegers, a psychiatrist who deals with mental health among young people, and Eric van Dommelen, a Rotterdam-based former police officer who fell into burnout.
In the third season, the theme was “the night,” and since Mylena likes to think about sociology of work, it was an obvious choice for her to create an episode about night work: “For example, in the podcast, we're talking to sociologist Fabian Dekker about his book on night work.”
According to the Stadswandelingen format, in addition to interviewing a scientist, there is also a Rotterdam resident who voices the first-person perspective. At the time, Mylena was still working in Rotterdam, at Jordy's Bakery, which gave her ideas for whom to ask. “At the bakery, I sometimes had to start at six o'clock and then there was always, especially on weekends, a team of garbage collectors cleaning the Nieuwe Binnenweg.” She eventually found Dennis, a garbage collector who is also a hairdresser, a unique angle. “I didn't know anyone who was a garbage collector, so I posted a call on Instagram, to which several people responded, 'Dennis the barber and garbage collector, send him a message.' What's really fun is that he picks up trash one day, and cuts people in his business the next.”
More information about Erasmus Verbindt
The university-wide student initiative 'Erasmus Verbindt' (EV) connects science and society in Rotterdam: to create a positive impact. With this initiative, EUR students want to make an active contribution to solving the important and complex social issues that lie ahead. The mission of Erasmus Verbindt is carried out in three tracks. In one, they explore the ways in which Rotterdam science and the city of Rotterdam are already connected. They do so in the podcast “City Strolls.
Invisibility
Philosophy and journalism have clearly influenced Mylena's work for City Strolls, but City Strolls has also, in turn, influenced the alumna's life. “In the episode about night work, we talk to Fabian Dekker, who is a labor sociologist at Erasmus University. Dekker wrote the book 'Forgotten professions: Living and working as a night worker,' where, he says, he wanted to interview the birds of paradise of the night. These are not people who resign themselves to the fact that their work is simply at night, but people who actually like to work at night. Sometimes they are cleaners, but also radio DJs or people who work in healthcare. For example, a care worker who loves the fact that he does not have to deal with all kinds of regulations at night, which gives him more time for clients. Or people who enjoy working in anonymity. And at night you also work partly invisibly. That aspect of invisibility is what I wrote my master's thesis about. In particular about the invisibility of cleaners on the Zuidas.”
That topic choice came partly because of the episode, but also because Mylena was taking the course “Politics of Care Work,” she explains. “That course was about reproductive labor. Cleaning work is also a form of reproductive labor. And specifically the Zuidas I found interesting, because many negative things are written about that place. A lot of money goes around there, but I found it interesting to think about who makes sure that the people there can do their jobs. You have people working with millions of dollars a day versus a cleaner who is actually working for minimum wage. I assumed there would be a greater contrast there. Or that that invisibility of a cleaner in a place like that would be greater.”
More respect
Work at night, invisibility and garbage collectors, it's all in the latest episode Mylena has been working on, and she therefore hopes that listeners listening to City Strolls episode 19: 'Invisible work: How Rotterdammers are on duty at night' will look differently at (night) work: “Or maybe also differently at a garbage collector. If listeners might have a little more respect for practical professions, I'll be satisfied.”
Listen to Stadswandelingen episode 19: about the value and revaluation of night work on Spotify (in Dutch).